Micah, the first part of chapter one. This is how it starts. This book starts this way. The word of the Lord that came to Micah of Moresheth in the days of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, kings of Judah, which he saw, that is Micah saw this, so it's a vision, concerning Samaria and Jerusalem. Then listen to this call. Hear all you peoples. Listen, O earth, and all that is in it. In other words, this is for everybody. Everybody better listen up. The Lord, let the Lord be a witness against you. The Lord from His holy temple, for behold, the Lord is coming out of His place. He will come down. and tread on the high places of the earth. The mountains will melt under him, the valleys will split like wax before the fire, like waters poured down a steep place. Why? All this is for the transgression of Jacob, for the sins of the house of Israel. What is the transgression of Jacob? Is it not Samaria? And what are the high places of Judah? Are they not Jerusalem? Therefore, I will make Samaria a heap of ruins in the field, places for planting a vineyard. I will pour down her stones into the valley, and I will uncover her foundations. All her carved images shall be beaten to pieces, and all her pay as a harlot shall be burned with the fire. And all her idols I will lay desolate, for she gathered it from the pay of a harlot. And they shall return. to the pay of a harlot. Man, what an opening, right? This call, hey, listen, you better listen up. This is something. Yeah, this is going to be pointed to Samaria, the northern kingdom, the southern kingdom. But listen, everybody better listen up to what Micah is going to say. October 1971, John Lennon releases Imagine. And in that, Imagine becomes this sort of like this anthem song. catchy tune and so forth, but in that, you remember how the song starts? Lennon writes, imagine there is no, what? Heaven. That's how he starts, imagine there is no heaven, okay? Now, in one way, he was brilliant. Lennon was a pretty good songwriter. I mean, he wrote some pretty amazing stuff. But in one way, for this song to catch on and become sort of this anthem, he was brilliant. Because he didn't say, right out of the gate, there is no heaven. You see, if he would have said right out of the gate, there is no heaven. And he would have gotten the reception that he got. What he did, and the brilliance of what he did, was he didn't do a frontal assault. He sort of did this side assault. And what he did was call on people to fire their imaginations and think about the possibility. And at the time, and we still see the fruit of this today, we still see it today because At the time, there's the idea of, which has its roots all the way back in Enlightenment thinking, but the idea that you fire your imagination, create your own reality, create your own world, create your own existence. So just imagine there's no heaven. Remember what he said after that? It's easy if you what? Try. It's easy if you try. For an unbeliever, yeah, sure, it's easy to try. Yeah, imagine there's no heaven. Right? Then he says there's no hell below us. And then you remember throughout that, no countries, no religion and all that. Imagine. Imagine. Imagine that. So let's do that. Let's imagine no heaven. Let's do what he says. Let's imagine no heaven. You see, the problem with the whole philosophical mindset behind what Lenin's writing and the world view in which he's coming from, which is the most dominant world view today, by the way, is why we're looking at the prophets. You don't get utopia. You get misery. You get misery. Because if you imagine there's no heaven, then imagine this. Imagine there's no forgiveness. Forgiveness is theological. Forgiveness comes out of the Christian worldview. Forgiveness comes out of the scriptures. So if you're going to imagine no heaven, and by implication, imagine no God, then imagine no forgiveness. Now I will say this. We've spent some time on this and looking at this and going through a lot of the thoughts and trying to link this stuff and trace this stuff. But I will say this, we don't have to imagine it today. We're living no forgiveness today. Because you see, you wake up every day and what you said yesterday may be out of bounds today. What you were willing to say at work yesterday to co-workers, tomorrow you could be called out for and canceled, right? So where do we stand? What do we do? So what's going to happen? We just be quiet. All right? You remember Amos, in times of evil, the prudent, they'd just be quiet. They'd just be quiet. So imagine that there's no forgiveness. No forgiveness. And again, I would submit we don't have to imagine it. We're living in it right now because at the core of some of what we see and some of the movements and some of the things that we see, especially with the social justice, there is no forgiveness. There is no redemption in it. And where's it going to lead? Misery. And where's that misery going to lead? It's going to blow up at some point. It's going to blow up at some point. But now, we know, and we know this because God's revealed this, we know there is a heaven. We know there is a hell, right? We know there is a transcendent God above it all. And I use the word transcendent because I've been using it throughout this in connection with truth. There's transcendent truth. Truth is not what we make it up to be. And there is a transcendent God who exists outside of this. Both of those ideas are rejected today. There is no transcendent God. The only thing you have is what you have right now. The only reality you have is here and now. And you better make the most of that reality. But there is a transcendent God. And the thing about this transcendent God, He's not like us. What He's revealed about Himself is He's not like us. He's not one of us. In the sense that He's part of His creation. Now, He did become one of us, didn't He, in the incarnation? The Word became flesh and dwelt among us. But in Christ, we see fully God, fully man. See, He's not like us in the sense that He's part of His creation. It's not it at all. In other words, He can't be imagined away. You can try. You can try. He can't be imagined away. He created everything that exists. He sets the rules for the game. He does. He sets the rules for the game. And here's the thing about the rules of the game. The rules of the game are rooted and grounded in His nature, in His character. That's where they're grounded. They're grounded in His nature, in His character. He is the one who is all-knowing, all-powerful, all-seeing, everywhere present. He is the one who is gracious, loving, Merciful, but He's also just. And He's also righteousness. He's also righteous. So, imagine this. Imagine this. Imagine that God, the God who's revealed Himself in His Word, in the Bible. Imagine that God leaving His dwelling leaving his place and coming down to settle accounts. Let's imagine that. Let's imagine him saying he's coming to settle accounts. He's coming to settle things up. So then a question then would become, okay, if that's going to happen, then what is he going to require from me? If I'm going to settle up with him, what is he going to require from me? That becomes a burning question. Jesus gave several parables in connection with this. I'm talking about landowners leaving and leaving stuff with the tenants and so forth. And then the landowners coming back and looking and saying, okay, what did you do with what I gave you? And some made it prosper, some, you know, a bunch and some little. And then you remember the one parable, there was the one who said, I, man, you're mean, you're cruel. And I, I buried it in the ground. I buried him in the ground because I wasn't going to lose what you gave me. And he says, oh, you cruel servant. You should have at least put it in the bank and gained interest. You did nothing with what I gave you. So let's imagine he's coming. He's going to settle accounts. What does he require? And once we understand what he requires, then also this. This is another question. What is the one thing that I would want from him? If I understand what he's going to require of me, then what's the one thing I want from him? Micah's going to answer these two questions. And Micah's going to do it in the context of pronouncing judgment. He's going to do it in the context of giving out two rounds of messages here. There's different ways. Micah's very hard to look at the structure and figure out exactly how Micah breaks down. Some break Micah down into three different prophecies, three different messages. We're going to look at it in two rounds of a series of messages. And these two rounds follow a familiar pattern. We've seen this over and over with the prophets. What the pattern is, is this. Judgment. We see it. And Micah's going to be brutal. Micah's gonna be brutal. Micah, like a skilled surgeon, takes his scapel, and he looks beyond just the external, and he takes the words of God, and he cuts through to the very core of the problem, lays it open, fillets it open, and exposes the sin, and says, now, what are you gonna do? Micah was a master. Micah's written in such a way, he uses poetry, he uses word plays, he's a master in the way that this is written. He's a master with word, he's a master with images, it's poetic, but it's hard to figure out a structure with the way that he writes this and the messages that he gives. We've been looking at the prophets, and the reason we've been looking at the prophets is that we're trying to answer this question. This is the overarching question that we've been wrestling with. How do we engage a post-Christian culture? How do we engage a post-Christian culture? And we've looked at this. We've seen Daniel. Daniel's helped us with this. Hosea's helped us with this. Joel's helped us with this. Amos has helped us with this. Last week we saw Jonah. And Jonah, how do these prophets, because these prophets were dealing with and engaging with what we could call and could look at as post-Christian cultures. They were dying, decaying. At one time they had flourished. Micah's writing about the same time. He overlaps with Isaiah some. He overlaps with Isaiah just a little bit. And He gives us three kings during the time that He's writing, during the time that He's preaching. Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, all of these, along with Micah, in this time period where Assyria is the rising power. And they look on the horizon and they go, man, there's Assyria. Assyria is going to have to be dealt with. I gave the example last week, or the week before, in looking at it sort of like this. It's like we look at China right now, right? Man, China's growing, China's doing this, China's doing that. And for the last 20, 30, maybe 50 years, we've been looking at China and saying, oh my gosh, man, China's this growing threat. Well, they were looking at Assyria the same way. There's Assyria sitting there getting stronger and stronger and stronger, taking this land, taking this land, threatening the northern kingdom, threatening the southern kingdom. And in 722 they finally walk into Samaria, they walk into the northern kingdom and totally destroy it. Totally destroy it. Micah is going to talk about this. He's also going to mention Judah, he's going to mention the southern kingdom. And what happens after that when the Babylonians come in in 587 and destroy the southern kingdom. Micah is preaching probably 20, maybe 30 year period that he preaches. We don't know for sure. And he's preaching about the same context, about the same time frame after Jeroboam II, who was king. And it was a time of prosperity. Things went well. They expanded their borders. The economy was growing great. There was a huge wealthy class that had developed. And you can just imagine what happened in the nation of Israel, what happened with them in that process of prosperity. What happened to them? They began to worship idols. They became lazy. They became lax. They started just going through the motions. They began to oppress people. They began to forget about God, forget about real true worship. They kept the outward trappings of it. So all of this is going on. Micah comes on. Micah starts preaching. And there's two rounds of messages that we're going to see. In the first round of messages, beginning in chapter one, we just read this call. Listen, here, all you peoples, all you peoples, all the earth, listen. Let God be a witness against you. You see, this is God's standard here. We're not measuring ourselves against each other. We're not measuring ourselves against the Chinese. We're not measuring ourselves against the Russians. We're measuring ourselves against the standard of God. He's going to be witness. He's going to be witness. And notice this, he says, the Lord from his holy temple. And he says, he's coming out. He's coming out of his place. And he's coming down. When he comes out of his place, in the language of the prophets, when he comes down, when he comes down like this, he's coming down for judgment. And that's why it says, and he's going to tread. He's going to smash the high places. Why the high places? That was the places of idolatry. That's where they worshiped the idols. False worship. And the mountains, when he comes, the mountains are going to melt. The valleys are going to split like wax. Waters pour down a steep place. And he's so specific because he says, and all this is for the sin of Jacob. The sin of Jacob. And then he mentions the northern kingdom. And the sins of the house of Israel. What is the transgression of Jacob? Is it not Samaria? Samaria became the place of Baal worship. Is it not Samaria, this great idol factory that you run to and that you worship? And what are the high places of Judah? Are they not Jerusalem? One of the sins that he identifies, one of the sins that he takes his scalpel and he cuts to the core, it's this idolatry that they had fallen into. Now we have to be careful because we've already seen this with some of the prophets. We're going to see it more because we're going to think, yeah, that's great, but we don't have statues of Baal. Now, let me be very careful here. Let me be very, very careful here. Let me tread very lightly here. But is it possible to worship a vaccine and not God? Is it possible to look at government and say government's my hiding place, not God? You see, you have to be extremely careful with idolatry here. Because it's not just about shrines and so forth. So, idolatry is one of the sins. And he continues on and he says, I'm going to make Samaria. I'm going to come down and when I do, what's going to happen is that Samaria is going to become this memorial of a bygone day. Because I'm going to wipe it out. And he did. The Assyrians come in in 722. the northern kingdoms destroyed, never again to be rebuilt. Never again. Those 10 tribes that went to the north at the time of the divided kingdom, lost, gone. 722, it's over. It's over. But then what happens is that there's this mourning that Micah, once he realizes this is what's going to happen. This is exactly what God's about to do. And all of a sudden he breaks out in this mourning because here comes the first message really. Therefore I will wail, I will howl, I will go stripped and naked, I will make a wailing like the jackals, and a mourning like the ostriches, for her wounds are incurable, for it has come to Judah. It has come to the gate of my people, to Jerusalem. God's coming. And all of this eventually fulfilled in the Assyrians, and Micah sees it. He understands this is what is about to happen. And he's in anguish over it. You remember John? You remember walking through the book of Revelation? You remember at certain points John realizing this is what God's saying. This is what he's going to do. John being in anguish. Remember when he ate the little book? It was sweet and then it hit his stomach and you remember it was bitter in his stomach? Because he began to realize and he understood this is exactly what God's going to do. When he comes, this is what's going to happen? Micah realizes that he's in English. What's interesting in this next section is he goes back to the history of David. He says, tell it not in Gath. Where did he pull that from? He pulled that from 2 Samuel. He pulled that from 2 Samuel 1, verse 20. The fall of Saul. The death of Jonathan. And David wails and laments. And this is a straight quote from that song. It's called the Song of the Bow. David's lamenting. And then you read through the rest of this, and what he does is this word play on the names of the cities and what's going to happen. What's going to happen? Like the first one in Beth Ephra. It literally means house of dust. And so here comes the wordplay. You're going to roll yourself in dust. It's going to be bad. You work your way all the way down through that and you get to the end of this first message and he brings up David again, verse 15. And I will yet, I will yet bring an heir to you, O inhabitants of Marashah. Make yourself bald, or actually before that, the glory of Israel shall come to a dulem. Where was a dulem? These were the caves where David hid from Saul. It's a very poetic way of using David to say to God's people, to say to the northern kingdom and the southern kingdom, David was in mourning. David was running for his life. He flees to the caves. A serious coming. You also are going to flee. you also are going to flee. Then comes the second message in chapter 2. He addresses the evildoers. He addresses those who devise iniquity. You see that in verse 1 of chapter 2? Woe to those who devise iniquity. Now look down at verse 3. Therefore, thus says the Lord, behold, against this family I am devising a disaster. You see, you are so wicked, you are so evil in your business practices and everything else that's going on within your culture. You are devising iniquity. You think about it when you sleep. You work out evil in your beds. And the reason why is because you think it's within your power to do it. You think it's within your power to do it. And just because you think you have the power to do it, might makes right. And so what do you do? You practice corruption, deceit. All of this is here. On top of this idolatry and all of this that's happening. Now keep in mind, these are God's people. This is Israel. This is where they sang to. They oppress, you see verse 2, so they oppress a man and his house, a man and his inheritance. Therefore, the God says, I'm devising disaster. You devise iniquity. I'm devising judgment because it's coming. And he also says this about what's coming, from which you cannot remove your necks. There's no escape here. There's no escape hatch. There's no escape claws. And he says, nor shall you walk haughtily. You're not going to walk in your pride anymore. And then here comes this phrase, we saw this with Amos, for the time is an evil time. This is an evil time. This is an evil time. You want to imagine there's no heaven? This is what you get. You get misery. You get misery. It's an evil time. Then he addresses, after he deals with these evildoers there in the first part of chapter 2, he addresses the lying prophets. You see, there were prophets running around, just like there are prophets today, not literally, but you get what I'm saying, that are running around and saying, it's okay, it's okay, don't worry, we're okay, we got this. But notice what they do. Verse 6, this is what they say to Micah. Just shut up, Micah! You remember they told Amos. They call Amos in and they say, Amos, you've got to be quiet. You've got to stop saying these things. You're causing harm to people. You're causing psychological damage to people. You've got to stop it. So this is what they say to Micah, do not prattle. You say to those who prophesy, and so they shall not prophesy to you. They shall not return insult for insult. Who are you? You who are named in the house of Jacob. Is the Spirit of the Lord restricted? Is God just restricted here? You think you can muzzle God? Again, let's go back to where we started. You think you can imagine Him away and He just disappears? You can't muzzle Him. You can't restrict Him. He's all-knowing, all-powerful. He's everywhere present. He's God. You're not. And so as we see with the prophets, as they did with the apostles and so throughout the history of the church. Just be quiet. You Christians, just be quiet. Just be quiet. You're causing harm. Then he says, are these his doings? Yeah, they're God's doings. Do not my words do good? Yes, my words do good. Wait a minute, you're talking judgment here. How is that good? To him who walks uprightly? To God's people? Yes, because we understand. You see, this is when he says, Do not my words do good? Are these his doings? You remember when Amos said, A lion has roared. A lion has roared. And I told you when we walked through Amos and we were looking at those passages where it was talking about God being this lion that's roaring. Over this past year, a lion has roared. He is roared. And he is shaken. Think about this. He took one of the greatest economies the world ever knew, has ever known, and he stopped it in its tracks with a virus. Hawaiian roared! He's roared throughout history. Micah says, are these not his doings? They are his doings. And then he goes into this again, this list of things that they were doing. You oppress, you did this, you did that, corruption and so forth. You work your way down through chapter 2, and you get to the very end of chapter 2 in verse 12, and then all of a sudden, see, this is the way the prophets work. All of a sudden, there's this abrupt offer of hope. I mean, in the midst of this, you're going, oh, my gosh, this is terrible, it's horrible. Who could ever stand on this? Why would we ever want to think about these things? And then all of a sudden, verse 12, I will surely assemble all of you, O Jacob. I will surely gather the remnant of Israel. I will put them together like the sheep of the fold, like a flock in the midst of her pasture, They shall make a loud noise because of so many people. The one who breaks open will come up before them. They will break out, pass through the gate, and go out by it. Their king will pass before them with the Lord at their head." All of a sudden, there's this abrupt outbreak of Micah saying, there's hope, there's hope, there's hope. Now ultimately, this hope is found in Christ. And we're going to see it again in just a second. But then what does he do? He goes back to dealing with wicked rulers and prophets. He goes back to dealing with them. He says in chapter 3, verse 1, And then I said, Here now, O heads of Jacob, and you rulers of the house of Israel, is it not for you to know justice? Shouldn't you be the ones who know justice? Shouldn't you be the ones that people can turn to for justice? Again, I mentioned Wednesday night as we were reading through this. Echoes of Roman 13 are here. God is the one who ordained government. Government is a servant of God. Why? To make sure that justice is done. To punish evil, to reward good, to make sure justice is done. Where do you go when that breaks down? Of all the people, you should be the ones who know justice. That's what God's saying to Israel. You had his law. You had his prophets. You had his priest. You were taught it. Is it not for you to know justice? But then he says you hate good and love evil. This is what you've done. You've turned justice on its head. It's exactly what we're doing right now. We're turning justice on its head. You hate good. You love evil. Now we could spend some time on that one, couldn't we? But he continues on against these rulers. He continues on against government and the prophets and the religious leaders and so forth. And he just continues on and on and on about how they've turned their back on God. Verse 4. Then they will cry to the Lord, but He's not going to hear them. He will even hide His face from them at that time because they have done their deeds. They've been evil in their deeds. He's not going to listen. Your hands are full of blood, other prophets say. And then you skip down and you look at verse seven. So the seers shall be ashamed and the diviners abashed. Indeed, they shall cover their lips, for there is no answer from God. This is Amos 8. There's a famine. What's the famine of? Not of food. There's a famine of the word of God. They're going to cover their lips. There's no answer from God. So what do we do? We just imagine God. That's what we do. And the more we imagine, the more He becomes like us, and the more He becomes like us, the more misery and pain and suffering. That's where we are. That's exactly where we are. In verse 8, But truly, I'm full of power by the Spirit. See, here's a contrast. Micah says, I'm full of the power by the Spirit and justice and might. And I'm declaring to Jacob his transgressions. I'm showing his sins and to Israel his sin. Now hear this. And he calls again. Hear this. Listen to this. And he says to these false prophets, he says to these religious leaders who are running around and they're saying, listen, everything's OK. It's all right. We're God's people. It's going to be fine. It's going to be fine. And yet, they're just what Paul says to Timothy in 2 Timothy chapter 3. You've got a form of godliness, but you're denying the power of it. And in that list where he talks about this is what's going to happen, this is what a culture will look like when it abandons God. This is what a culture will look like, not only when a culture abandons God, but when God moves his hand. This is what it's going to look like. You go through that list and see. One of the things that he says there about disobedient to parents and all that stuff and morality and all that stuff that's running rampant. But one of the things he singles out there is he said there will be unforgiveness. There's no forgiveness. No forgiveness. This is what a culture looks like. This is what it looks like when it is decaying when it is falling apart. And you're going to have plenty of people running around saying, it's OK. We got this. It's all right. Jesus said, you know, he talked about the religious leaders. Remember when he called them whitewashed tombs? He said, you guys are a bunch of whitewashed tombs. You look great on the outside, but inside you're full of dead men's bones. You want to make an appeal to the covenant? This is what Mike is basically saying. You want to make an appeal to the covenant? You're God's covenant people. You want to make that appeal? But then you want to ignore the very character and nature of God? You want to ignore the very nature and character of God? Then all of a sudden, the second part of this first round of messages in chapter four, here comes this hope. In chapter 4 verse 1, now it shall come to pass in the latter days, in the latter days, the immediate future of what Mike is dealing with, the restoration and the latter days. We're in the latter days now. We have been since the cross. Jesus ushered in the latter days. That the mountain of the Lord's house shall be established on the top of the mountains. It's going to be above all. And then you read down through this, all the way through this chapter. And what Michael's talking about is this great blessing that's coming. This great move of God that's coming. And then you look at chapter 4 verse 5. For all the people walk in the name of his God. That's the way it is now. But we will walk in the name of the Lord our God. That's what's going to happen then. There's going to be a restoration. There's going to be this revival. There's going to be this where God again establishes his people. In verse 6, in that day the Lord says, I will assemble the lame, I'm going to take the outcasts, I'm going to take all the ones that this world has thrown out and what I'm going to do is I'm going to assemble them into a remnant. And what's going to happen is they are going to become this great remnant of people. What's interesting about what happens at the beginning of chapter 5 is he continues with his great blessing that he talks about. As all of a sudden he breaks out with his promise of the Messiah. In chapter 5, verse 1, he says, now gather yourselves in troops, O daughter of troops. He has laid siege against us. They will strike the judge of Israel with a rod on the cheek. But you, Bethlehem of Athra, but you, Bethlehem, not Jerusalem, not Jerusalem, but Bethlehem, Though you are little among the thousands of Judah, yet out of you shall come forth to me the one to be ruler in Israel, whose goings forth are from of old, from everlasting to everlasting. That's only a description of Christ. You see, when he describes a person as whose goings forth are from of old, that's eternal language. There's only one who fits that, and that's Christ. And what's he saying? Matthew picks up on this in chapter 2, verse 6. And he says, where was Christ born? He's born in Bethlehem. That's where he was born. This is what Mike is saying. This is where the Messiah is coming. He's going to be born in Bethlehem. Why Bethlehem and not Jerusalem, the capital? You would think, man, he's going to come out of Jerusalem. No, he comes out of Bethlehem. That was David's birthplace. That's where David was born. He's the son of David. He's in the line of David, you see. And so there's this great promise, the coming of the Messiah. He's coming in the midst of all this judgment. Here's hope. He's coming. And then verse five, he says, and this one shall be peace. He shall be peace. Then he turns his attention again to the enemies of God's people. And he says, God's in the people, the enemies of God's people will be dealt with. Assyria will be dealt with. Babylon will be dealt with. They will be dealt with. Eventually, all the pagan nations will be dealt with. There's the ultimate triumph and victory of Christ. Isn't this where the book of Revelation ends? Isn't it where it ends? The ultimate triumph of Christ? Then you get to the second round in chapter 6. Same structure. Judgment first. And he lays this out like a lawsuit. Hear now what the Lord says. Arise, plead your case before the mountains. So he lays this out like a lawsuit, like some of the prophets do. Verse 3 of chapter 6. O my people, what have I done to you? How have I wearied you? Have I caused you harm? Have I caused you harm? What have I done to you? This is Hosea. Remember in Hosea, Hosea breaks out. God breaks out and says, oh Judah, what am I going to do with you? What do I do with you? You stubborn, rebellious people. What do I do with you? And then he goes back to the Exodus. I brought you out of Egypt. You want to know if I loved you? I brought you out of Egypt, didn't I? I could have left you there. You could have disappeared. You could have been done for forever. But I brought you out of Egypt. Then he refers back to Numbers 22. when he talks about what happened with Balak and Balaam. And then he says this in verse 6. With what shall I come before the Lord? See, here's where we get to the first question. What does he require? Okay, he's going to come down. Imagine he's coming down. He's going to settle accounts. What does he require? With what shall I come before the Lord? And bow myself before the high God. Shall I come before him with burnt offerings? With calves a year old, will the Lord be pleased with the thousands of rams, 10,000 rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? Do I give him something? Do I give him my very life? Do I die for my sins? What is he requiring from me? All these acts of worship, these outward acts of worship, Amos has already told us he hated that. He hated that. No, verse 8, you see this? He has shown you, old man. He's shown you what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? Where did he show him? He showed him in the law. Where does he show us? He shows us in his word, right? We open his word, we read it and we say, who am I? Who is Christ? What does it mean to know God, right? What does it mean to know him? He has shown us what that means. The first thing has to do with horizontal relationships, but to do justly and to love mercy. This is toward men, this is toward others. To do justly, to love mercy. And then here's the second one. This is vertical. And to walk humbly with your God. The idea of fellowship here. We don't have the time to go into 1 John and look at what John's talking about when he's talking about fellowship. And what he says is he's writing these things because he wants them to have fellowship. And he says our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ. When you come to Christ, then you have fellowship with us, and there's this intimate relationship that happens. That's what this humble walking business is all about in the Old Covenant. It is about what Jesus begins to say in John chapter 3 with be born again. You must be born again. And then He walks on from there, and He begins to talk about a life in which you follow Him, love Him, have fellowship with Him. I'm in you. You're in me. You're abiding in me. That's what it is to walk humbly with God. What this is, is a call to fellowship, and it's a call to fellowship with Him through Christ and Christ alone, that's it. What this is, when we get to the New Testament, what this is, is the gospel call. Turn from your sin, put your faith and trust in Christ, and trust Him, and live for Him, walk with Him. That's exactly what this is. And then you do justly. Then you love mercy. That's what He requires. You're going to give an account to Him? But you will one day. What are you going to stand there with? Well, I've got a bunch of good stuff here. I've got a bunch of it, man. I think the good outweighs the bad. That's the way a lot of people think. No, what does God require? He requires perfection. That's what He requires. So it leads to the second question then, right? I mean, if He doesn't cut corners, and if God is transcendent, and His truth is transcendent, then His standards are transcendent. So it's not like morality and ethics and things like that are just a matter of taste. Well, I like this and you don't like that, but I do, and so this is mine, and we get this mishmash of mess, misery. It's not that, he's transcended. So if his standards are transcended, and if what he requires is transcended, and he's revealed it to us, then I stand in trouble if I'm not in Christ. So then the next question is, if I understand what he requires, then what's the one thing I want from him? I want forgiveness. You see it? I want forgiveness. And where is it found? It's not found in imagining it. It's found in Christ. This One who's to come. He continues on in 6. This world is not enough, he says. It's just not enough. You're going to have all the houses you want and never be satisfied. You're going to have all the money you want and never be satisfied. You're going to have all the fields full of the olive trees full of olives, but you're never going to be satisfied. It's Amos again, right? Amos says, you're going to build all these luxurious places, but you're not going to live in them. You're not going to be satisfied. This world is not enough. It always leads to misery. Always leads to misery without Christ. So then comes a summary of Israel's sins in the first part of chapter 7. And it's horrible. It's bad. I mean, you read through this, and it's bad. It almost makes you cringe when you read. This is how far down they had sunk. And Micah does it by allegory, because he places himself in the position of God. And God's the one who's walking through here. It's like gathering summer fruits. And he talks about all of this misery that's here. All of this sin that's here. And look down at verse 5. This is what's interesting. He says, do not trust a friend, do not put your confidence in a companion, guard the doors of your mouth from her who lies in your bosom. For son dishonors father, daughter rises up against her mother, daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law, and a man's enemies are the men of his own household. You can't trust anyone. Earlier in this description, earlier, he referred to this sin and what they were doing. He used the language of cannibalism. You are devouring each other. You are eating each other up. You are picking the bones. You are ripping the flesh off the bones. This graphic language. This is what you are doing. This is where you are. Yeah, but the economy's coming back. Let me tread ever so carefully here as well. There's hope the Republicans might take back the House. We might even take back the executive branch. Things will get better. And here comes Micah with a scalpel and he slices open and he says, you don't understand what the real problem is here. You don't understand the real nature of your sin here. This is Jesus. You say you haven't committed adultery? Yeah, but are you lusting in your heart? You say you haven't committed murder? You have hatred in your heart? So what did Jesus do with the law? He took it, and what did He do with sin? He said, it's not just what you do, it's a matter of the heart. And there needs to be a transformation of the heart, a change of the heart. This is what Micah's getting to. And then here comes this hope, this final hope. And look, when you get to this, this is where Micah ends. This is one of the greatest statements of hope in all the Old Testament. As bad as Micah is, as bad as this word play and all of this that he does about this judgment and how bad the people were and how far they had gone without God. Then you get to the very end of this. Get to the very end of this. By the way, after he gives this description in chapter 7, in verse 7 he says, therefore I will look to God, but I'm going to look to the Lord, and I will wait for the God of my salvation. My God will draw near. He's going to hear. He's going to come. And then he talks about confession. I will bear the indignation of the Lord because I've sinned against Him. There's this true heartfelt confession. This is David in Psalm 51 after his sin with Bathsheba. I've sinned against you. There's this heartfelt confession. Not covering it up. Not excusing it away. Not redefining it. But then you get to the very end of this. This section of hope. In verse 17. They shall lick the dust like a serpent. They shall crawl from their holes like snakes of the earth. They shall be afraid of the Lord our God and shall fear you because of you. They shall fear because of you. He's talking about God's people. He's going to restore them. And the pagans are going to be afraid of you. And then here comes verse 18. Who is a God like you? Who is a God like you? Now listen to this. Pardoning iniquity. And passing over the transgression of the remnant of His heritage. He does not retain His anger forever. Why? Because He delights in mercy. Now wait a minute. Almost seven full chapters of this judgment talk, and we've just spent all this in which God's saying He's doing this, He's coming down, and He's not coming down for tea. Yeah, because He's just. But He also delights in mercy. And He will again have compassion on us and will subdue our iniquities. You will cast all our sins, listen to this, you will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea. You will give truth to Jacob and mercy to Abraham, which you have sworn to our fathers from days of old. It's interesting as Paul talking about the church to Timothy in 1 Timothy chapter 3, he talks about the church. The church is now the pillar and ground of the truth. But this is what you need to see. In all of this talk of judgment, in all of this talk of the justice and righteousness of God and the wrath of God, what breaks forth out of this is who is a God like you who can be faithful and just and righteous? And yet at the same time, forgive sin. At the same time, be merciful. Who is a God like that? Only our God. And how did He do it? He did it in Christ. That's exactly how He did it. He did it in Christ. He did it in Christ. Samuel Davies wrote a hymn in the 1700s. Samuel Davies is a powerful preacher in the Great Awakening. Wrote a lot of poetry, wrote some hymns. And he wrote a hymn, The Great God of Wonders, and this is what it says, Great God of Wonders, all thy ways are worthy of self-divine, and the bright glories of thy grace among thine other wonders shine. Who is a pardoning God like thee? Or who has grace so rich and free? Listen to the second stanza. Pardon? Pardon from an offended God? Pardon for sins deep and die. Pardon bestowed through Jesus's blood. Pardon that brings the rebel nigh. Who is a pardoning God like thee? Or who has grace so rich and free? Oh, may this glorious matchless love, this God-like miracle of grace, to teach mortal tongues like those above, to raise this song of lofty praise? Who is a pardoning God like Thee? Who? Or who has grace so rich and free? You know the answer to that. There's not one. There's not one. Only the God who has revealed Himself in His Word. And it's only found in Christ. How does Micah help us engage a post-Christian culture? Sin has to be condemned. It has to be condemned. It has to be done in a loving way, in a gracious way. But it has to be condemned. Why? Because God condemns it. But there also has to be this understanding that there's forgiveness. Because if you're going to imagine God away, you're going to imagine forgiveness away. And you're going to have misery, and that's exactly where we're at right now. And what do we offer a post-Christian culture? We say to a post-Christian culture, turn to Christ, and you will find a pardoning God. You'll find a pardoning God. And He'll save you from your sins. There's salvation and hope in Him. And then the last thing, What does He require? Look, what He requires is turn to Christ and then what He requires is for us to love Him and follow Him. We must, we must reflect the very nature and character of God to this culture and the way we live. Not just what we do on Sundays. Not just what we do on Sundays. I don't care What this post-Christian culture is saying, the Church of Christ is still a force. It's still a force. We're not some relic of a bygone era. We're still a force. And the reason we're still a force is because Christ, the working of the Spirit. Man, Micah hits us, doesn't he? I've sinned against God. I've sinned against Him. I confess that sin. But who is a pardoning God like Thee? so full of mercy, so full of grace, who delights in saving rebellious sinners.